Happy Friday, everyone!
Here is this week’s poll question, submitted by RSC member George Feola, market manager for Bicoastal Media in Coos Bay, OR:
How often do you hold sales meetings and/or general staff meetings?
Looking forward to reading your replies!
So far staff meetings are held whenever there is something to discuss, no regularity. Sales meetings a not held and I feel this is a mistake. We are a team of 8 in our radio - sales, managers and hosts.
Depends on the experience and size of your sales team. Every sales department needs to meet in group atleast one time per week to review sales materials, share ideas, and get a "pep" talk from the sales manager. A sales team of two can normally be handled passing in the hall way. Staff meetings also depends on a number of things including the side of the staff.
I agree .. the life blood of the radio station needs to meet weekly! How can you supervise a team of 8 without them all sharing ideas and all be given the same marching orders?
We meet on Monday mornings as well (9am) for Sales... all staff as needed.
I try to keep the meetings to 30 minutes, with time for "one on one" meetings as needed. (I emphasize "try" because we are usually over 30 minutes... sometimes closer to an hour if we have BIG things on the plate!)
We have a similar agenda each week, wrap up last week success stories, talk about what's in the works for this week, go over goals and where we are, share some new ideas for clients, then end with a sales tip... this is something I get from one of MANY sources each week... I take one of the newsletters that hit me the most and share it with the crew.
We have sales meetings when needed. There is an old saying. If you need to kill a snake don't hold a meeting just kill the snake!
Dave Birnie
KCNI/KBBN
Broken ow Nebraska
Dave .. how many "snake killers" do you have on staff (couldn't resist). The larger the sales staff the greater the need for more frequent sales meeting. Have a great day.
Weekly sales meetings (Monday afternoon) for our station's staff. We have a monthly meeting led by our GM once a month and this includes sales reps from all our stations.
Interested to hear feedback on this!
One morning weekly we have a sales meeting and once a month a staff meeting. Every 2 weeks we have a 1 on 1 with our sales manager to discuss our budget forecast and progress.Once weekly we have lunch time sales training.
Sales meetings every Monday morning; general staff meetings as needed
Sales Meetings every Monday morning - to get entire team focused and fired up!!! Additional impromptu Sales Meetings as the need/opportunity arises.
General Staff Meetings, weekly, every Wednesday right after lunch, entire team included (however we are a small group of 8, so it is relatively easy). We rotate each week who brings a 'treat' to share. It adds a little to the camaraderie and cohesiveness we are trying to build. It is helping and most generally look forward to the meeting.
Trying to get more disciplined about daily one-on-ones with Sales staff.
We have 1 on 1's every Monday and sales meetings every Tuesday and Thursday morning.
We have a sales team of 9. Our sales meetings are held weekly - Wednesday mornings at 8am. This is a great way to recap what successes (or failures) we've had as well as what's working, trending etc. We also get our "marching orders" from the LSM/GM. These meetings are kept to 30-45 minutes.
We also hold general staff meetings once a quarter and promotion meetings once a month. It really improves communications within the departments to have these regular meetings with everyone involved.
We hold Sales Meetings every week, Wednesday at 8:30. We also have one on ones each week on friday.
We meet for a brief meeting each morning. All salespeople bring three sample ads to present that day. We review them for the elements of success. Every salesperson can then make three calls and open with "I have an idea for YOU that our entire staff brainstormed at a meeting this morning." They then explain to the client that our most satisfied advertisers have something in common. They all run ads that use a system for writing. They contain a specific offer, the price, urgency with time or quantity limits, a call to specific action with strong action verbs...a slogan (all from Chris Lytle) and are personalized by the client. We have also learned that emotion is essential to cut throught he clutter of the more than 5,000 advertising impressions a consumer is exposed to daily in America. The salesperson then asks if they could PLAY the commercial and see how he/she did getting the seven key components into the ad.
It's important to PLAY the ad and hand the client a copy to read along while listening. We also list the elements and quote the ad so the client sees the system clearly.
After playing the ad TWICE on an iPad or iPhone with speakers (much better image-projection than a cd player or even the phone alone) the sales rep asks, "How did I do getting the elements of our most successful copy into a message for you?"
(We know the answer.)
Their response after the cleint says that it appears they are all in the message is,
"Great because the only thing working in advertising today is waht you say times how many times you say it.
The only thing that works in the market is what you say times how many times you say it. What you say is the ad...and we have a pretty good one here, don't we? How many times you say it is the schedule.
(Hand the client three proposals and say "I recomment the agressive plan. May I have your approval.")
We also meet every W afternoon for two or three hours. The best meetings are when we invite clients to talk about what they like and do not like about salespeople who call on them.
We have a meeting every Tues & Thursday since I am new and I need so much learning. I am very new I am only here 1 month and only sold small spots, I have gone to see many people and nothing yet!!
I hold weekly sales meetings with my sales teams. The ultimate goal is to help this team hit the company goal. Here are elements of my meetings.
For small teams of 1-3, the meetings can be shorter and they love it when we wrap up in 20-30 mins. If they know I will not keep them there to fill as much time as I want, but focus on what they need they keep coming back for more.
Rene
I'll base them on staff experience and size. Smaller staffs 10 or less, General Staff meeting when necessary. Sales meetings will be held weekly. (Only when pacing is off or when we are introducing a new product line.) The focus of all general sales meetings is to identify shortfalls, market conditions and competitive advantage. One on Ones are always weekly with sellers and department heads.
Larger staff 10+ General Staff as needed (monthly - quarterly) depending on size. Sales/DH -Weekly, one on one weekly.
In all cases, these are structured to identify "specific" opportunities to grow, improve and celebrate success.
If sales is pacing well, I will scrap general sales meeting all together. We had no general sales meetings between May of 2012 and January of this year. My experience has been that a staff with less experience will need more coaching (more time with you), a more experienced/senior staff will want to run....let them.
We have our sales meeting once a week with a staff meeting that follows. It takes a little bigger chunk of time that way but sales and production start the week off on the same page and that's always nice.
Have a great weekend!
We have a weekly staff meeting with our three stations via skype or phone. We also have a weekly sales and promotions meeting with all sales staff, PD's and myself.
We have a quarterly staff meetings. These all-employee meetings are 90 minutes (and usually are done with pizza at lunchtime. Each Department Head goes over everything new in their department. It's also a time to update everyone on big-picture plans and initiatives for the stations.
We have weekly Department Head meetings. One hour every Tuesday morning.
We have weekly Sales Meetings. One hour every Wednesday morning.
We have two, weekly Sales Training sessions (one hour each, from 5-6PM every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon).
Each AE has a one-hour one-on-one with our Local Sales Manager. Those meetings are all held on Monday.
At this station (KLCI-FM aka BOB-106) in Minneapolis St. Paul, MN, we have sales meetings every Tuesday at 8:30am and they last about an hour. They have a printed agenda, which keeps us on track, so we can make a 10am sales appointment after the meeting.
The most effective sales meetings that I've ever experienced in my 40 years in radio were the years that I was with Great Empire Broadcasting (WOW Radio in Omaha). They were Saturdays 8-10am. Led by General Manager (Ken Fearnow) and Sales Manager (Bill Calvert). Nobody liked the Saturday sales meetings, but we all made more money by not using "sales" time M-F for a meeting. Each salesperson also had a weekly 1-on-1 with the Sales Manager, after 4:30pm on one day a week. Like it or not, I made the most money on that Sales Meeting system.
Ed Brady (763-742-3142 [email protected]
We hold brief 1 on 1 Individual Business Meetings between AE and Sales Manager (progress reports mostly) every Monday Morning and Sales staff meeting on Tuesday mornings at 8am. With this schedule the AEs are freed up by 8:45 when customers are starting their day and most appointments are after 9 as set by the customers. With the sales meetings they are normally market conditions, new things comming up for on air, sponsorship opportunities and the like. This is also where we share success stories.
General staff meetings are as needed.
We have sales meetings every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Tuesdays are for sales refreshers or reviews of materials we are reading and Thursdays are to review and discuss upcoming promotions at the station. We also meet daily at 4:45pm to discuss our top 5 goals we wanted to achieve for the day. We also report how much we wrote up and asked for at this meeting.
